...........Here we tell short
sheep stories with a little wit and occasional pearls of wisdom.
This area will be changed on a fairly regular basis. The pictures
are copyrighted, please do not use them.

..........There is a link at
the bottom of the page to jump easily to the other
tales............This story was written in March., 1998

...#8 The
Lamb Wave

Daylight starts to fade and the air
is still. The flock is in for the night, the pasture
gate is CLOSED.

Ignoring their lambs, the mothers
stand side by side at the feeders, heads immersed in
the hay, seeking the grain that has filtered down to
the bottom.

A sigh of relief, from the
exhausted and flat
Everyone tranquil, happy and fat,

except.........

the poor

disheveled

CAT !

(1)
"Baby
Dance": A quick series of stiff legged front
leg to rear leg bounces, performed with an arched
back it becomes a rocking, bucking bounce that
doesn't move out of it's tracks. The dance looks
like excess energy that bubbles up and just has
to get out. Healthy, warm and happy babies will
often "dance" during the first day of
life. The "baby dance" behavior stops
once the baby's coordination improves and they
are able to run without "rabbit
hopping".

Baby deer and antelope often spend
their day motionless in the tall grass, hidden from
the predators.

While the mothers graze with a
watchful eye, and the air becomes still as the sun
goes down, the little ones explode with pent-up
energy.

The still air affords a measure of
safety by keeping the herd's scent from drifting, and
the baby's exercise is vital for the development of
strong bones and muscle.

The "Lamb Wave" is not the same
as the explosion of energy displayed when the flock is
released out into the pasture, with moms and lambs
running everywhere. When the lambs do "the
Wave", they run 'en mass', and on a path set by the
leader, often as if it is a game where they must touch a
spot or object (like the concrete pad under the automatic
waterer) before returning back to the starting point. The
small and slow will often turn back before touching
"base" so that they can keep up with the
others. And they run the same path over and over and
over, like an ocean wave, up to the shore and back, up to
the shore and back.

Lambs at the age of about 10 days old
begin to do the "lamb wave" and continue for
another week to 10 days, at which point, they loose
interest in "The Wave", and nose into the
feeders with the moms to become......sheep.

"The Wave" generally occurs
between late afternoon and sundown, and we've never seen
it in the mornings. During the day we have seen something
similar, the "Lamb Dash" which is the subject
of ....another Sheep Tale!

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